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TI: So I'm going to move along to how you became an inspector general, I think in the Department of Transportation.

FS: Okay, you know, the interesting thing is, if you look back, and I reflected on my career, how does a kid from the farm out here in Puyallup, Washington, get to this kind of a job? I've had some key breaks, and I've told you about the key breaks that got me into Washington, and from Washington into this job auditing in the intelligence area. And that was a key item because with that, I really got a lot of visibility. Congressman Jack Brooks, who was chairman of the House Government Operations Committee, Senator Chiles, chairman of the Senate Government Operations Committee, the budget committees and the intelligence committees. And the Comptroller General of the U.S., Elmer Staats, (...) I'd have meetings with them. Well, so I was getting a lot of visibility. (...) What had happened was when I was head of audits in DoD, there was still some talk about shoring up the audit operations in other departments and agencies, and I was getting calls from Congressman Jack Brooks. He would call me up, and he asked me about this or that. Frank Horton, who was minority chair of House Government Operations, he would call me and I'd meet with him. And I got to know those folks.

So, as we're rocking along, the Inspector General Act gets passed, and they're looking for people to become IGs. And one day I got a call from the White House personnel asking me to interview for some of these jobs. And I really wasn't interested, I had the best audit job in the world. But they asked me to interview, so I did. Well, after I interviewed with the Department of Commerce, Department of Interior, EPA, HUD, (DOT). They're five agencies, five organizations. I thought about it and I said, "What the heck? I got the best job in the world." So I turned it down. But you know, after I turned that down, the next day I had some second thoughts about the whole thing. And I thought to myself, that was kind of a stupid mistake. It was a self-centered mistake that I made, I was thinking more about myself and not the Japanese American community.

TI: But let me back up. When you say that, because when you were at the Department of Defense, and the audit function there, isn't it much larger than even being inspector general at these other places, I mean, in terms of the audit function? Or is the inspector general, was that a very different position, and that's why you're saying this? I'm trying to understand, because the Department of Defense was, and is, so huge.

FS: That's the reason why I turned it down. The only difference is, the DoD was not put under the Inspector General Act, and so that job was still sitting there separately pending. And whereas the DOT job that I ultimately went to was a presidential appointment. So in U.S. government circles, it's a higher level job. But for me, professionally, the DoD job was a much greater job. And that's the reason why initially I turned it down. But I really had some second thoughts right after I did that. And I gave myself a lecture on that, and I said, "You know..." and again, I thought about your Uncle Bako and all the vets. In our community, we had never had a presidential appointee at the sub-cabinet level. We didn't have a cabinet level (appointee) at that time, we've since had them. So I really had some second thoughts about that, and I really felt badly about it. But you know what I did? I prayed for five days. And I remember this Friday, my secretary, I had three secretaries in my office in DoD, and my regular secretary was out to lunch, the second secretary comes in and she says, "Mr. Sato, there's a man that says he needs to talk to you. He says his name is Fritz." And she gave me this funny look, and of course, when she said "Fritz," I knew who he was.

TI: Right, the Vice President.

FS: Yeah. So I picked up the phone, and I answered the phone and I said, "Sato speaking," because I always knew to identify myself. And this voice came across, he says, "Frank, this is Fritz Mondale calling. I know you turned down that job as IG, and I just talked with Brock Adams, and Brock Adams says to the President and I, that if there's anybody you can get that I want, it's Frank Sato." So he says, "I'm here to call you and ask you, what is it I can do to convince you to take this job?" And that's how it all started. Well, to make a long story short, interesting thing that did happen is one of the things that I told the Vice President was that under the existing law at the time, I, as a civil servant, if I took the job as a presidential appointee, and there was a change in administrations and I lost my job, I could not go back to civil service. And I told Mr. Mondale about that, he says, "Frank, don't worry, I'll take care of that," and he did. He prepared an executive order for President Carter's signature, which changed that provision of law. So that if, in fact, I would be let go as an appointee in a change of administration, I could still go back to DoD.

TI: Now, was this just for you or for any federal employee?

FS: For any federal employee.

TI: So you changed the law.

FS: And that was by an executive order, just like the Executive Order 9066.

TI: So we have to call this the "Frank Sato Rule," this is good.

FS: [Laughs] It was.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2017 Densho. All Rights Reserved.